Patience... not my best virtue

Patience....
I have been relishing in this slow but clearly growing "time for a real life" and this weekend had the awesome fun of hanging w/ Walt, Jo, and Emma last night, after an afternoon of hiking w/ Janet & Steve and their kids.... so, after a day of caring, kind hearted, wonderful friend asking how things are going, and where we are in our adoption journey.... and having recently been to california to visit family and old good friends, and a girls weekend w/ my gburg crew, it's a question i've heard a ton lately.....

ah. i know it is meant well, and i now understand fully the response from friends trying to get pregnant when i'd ask with loving caution the very same implied question "how are things going?".. i can't tell you how many times i've heard the (again meant with love) response back to us after we say "where we are"..... "Be Patient"..

while i get it's a question asked from caring, and that we are blessed to have in our lives people who care and hope along with us, most times i think -- "Patient?" i have waited 20 years to have a child -- i met kids from Romanian orphanages 20 years ago this year and vowed then, that would be part of how i would have a family! ask my parents -- truly, i was the kid who watched those dateline in awe of the couples who had 10 adopted kids (and one with a hook for an arm!) and always wanted to be that....not to mention that anyone who knows me knows patience has never been one of my best virtues -- i am a "set a goal, work your plan, and achieve your goal" kind of gal.

Jeff and I met over 11 years ago. Crazy as it sounds, we agreed sooner about adopting children than we did even begin to acknowledge we'd be together forever (yes, like the sting song..).. Truly, we had a discussion by a pool at Jeff's hotel in San Mateo that first week -- adoption worked.. jeff's only response (understandably so) was "does it have to be 10 kids?".. HA HA!

Since then, we have been so lucky -- I am so lucky - my man is amazing.... we've had many laughs.. we tried and "planned it all out" and tried to "do it right" -- save money, buy a home, get us both into stable careers with solid incomes and the ability for both of us to work in a flexible way so kids are with me, with him, or with both of us.. LOTS of family time has been a major focus of how we made choices over the last 11 years... amidst that time, many trips to/from Romania, leaving numerous kids behind, especially little Jacob, because "timing was not right" and we wanted to be accountable, and be sure we could do all we could to be the best parents possible....

Patience. Each day, I am challenged over and over again with questions that plague me -- did we make the wrong choice? did we wait too long? will we ever succeed in finding a family? did i lead us astray? will jeff someday realize he is mad at me for not being able to apply my professional knowledge to help us with our personal success in trying to adopt? will families I work with on a daily basis in some way find me to be a complete farse b/c I am offering them advice on a topic for which I, personally, cannot seem to be successful at the moment?? believe me, there are many questions I ask myself, all the time, and each day I have to practice with myself the art of patience -- of slowing my brain down, and focusing on what i CAN do and CAN succeed in that very day. Some days, it's a big push on the PhD, other days it is 100% helping other families who are succeeding in adoption and relishing in the joy I can absorb from their experiences and their absolutely adorable, refreshing, resilient, beautiful faces of their newly arrived children..... other days it's spending time w/ my niece and nephew or friends and their kids to distract me.. But it is no easy feat for a typically impatient "do it now yourself. Establish if it CAN be done. If not, change your goal to something that can be achieved" person. So when you ask me that question, if i give you a "what? patient? what you talking about willis?" kind of facial expression, it's probably b/c in my head, that is what i am thinking... LOL.

Meanwhile, we continue to use "occupation" as our framework for getting by... Jeff at work and playing more ice hockey and building us our floating dock and ramp/gate... and me, busy w/ work, helping get a Nicaragua humanitarian program going, and of course the infamous PhD... OH YEA, and learning new ways to be patient, quietly forcing daydreams in my head of being a mom away -- it is not happening today, no sense increasing expectations or decreasing focus from TODAY. As for tomorrow, and how I will be patient, well I have been churning away on an idea to keep myself busy and continue to do international humanitarian work between now and if/when "our day" comes... As our new pastor (yahoo! the church has a new interim pastor and so far so great!) said today (paraphrased) -- we wait in great expectation: willing, hopeful, and risk taking - we don't know what exactly will happen, or when it will happen, but we must trust it will happen. we just have to be... you guessed it.... yes, we have to be patient.

So, a word to the wise::: watch out if you ask me or any other expectant mom to be patient! :) We know everyone cares, and we know we are so lucky to have so many people who are asking -- but, I caution you to take 10 paces backwards when you tell any woman on a mission to be a mom to be patient.... patience should not be a word allowed to be used anywhere in the vicinity of a woman on a mission to become a mom! We are ready, we are willing, we are expectant..

Are we PATIENT? Patience? Well, I am working on it... Constructive Ideas on what to do in the meantime are welcome!!